Life at home
Jul. 28th, 2006 01:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumIt's been hot here.
A month away, in the pleasant climes of Inverness and Kiev (both of which were warm, but not sweltering, sunny, with broken clouds) meant I wasn't really expecting the weather here.
Heat, I am used to. Los Angeles gets hot, broiling hot. The past week, however, has been more mid-west hot, sticky and stultifying. The house here has no air-conditioning, and our bedroom is on the west side. A fan helps, but it was miserable when I got in.
It doesn't help that I have some GI distress. It seems some of the Kiev water got into my system, I'm guessing from the meal I had on Saturday night. Happily it's mild, and didn't afflict me until after I'd gotten back to the house.
Saturday last, the day before my return, the tempurature peaked near 110F, humidity in the upper 60s. It killed 37 mice. Worse, from the point of view of a snake keeper, this sort of heat causes the females to stop breeding, just as we have some 60 babies, recently hatched, looking for breakfast.
Weds. we sold 54 of them, which was nice. Not only was it an offest to what it costs to house and feed them (Sanichips for the snakes, and food for the mice probably totals at about $600 per year) but it's a whole lot less work. The time and effort required to feed them is gone, the cleaning of containers is gone, and the pressure to keep the femaless breeding in the heat is gone.
Unhappily, the house we were planning to move into, the sweet deal, near UCS, caretaking the house; keeping and training the dog, fell through. I shan't go into detail, but it seems (and I wasn't here for the happenings) that the expectations we had, and the expectations they had, were at variance. There was also, somehow, a mis-understanding about the snakes, which led to other divergence of desires.
So we are in Pasadena, and looking for someplace. The greatest pain is that we can't have the dogs here. We went to see them, after we sold the snakes, and they are doing well. They've got more room to ramble than they did, some grass and dirt (Oliver, in particular, is glad for the grass, as he counts it a delicacy. I also discovered, when teasing him, that he like kumquats, though oranges and lemons are a cruel joke; they aren't tennis balls, and he thinks them not tasty. Go figure), but I miss them.
We head to SLO for the weeekend, to get the last things we have there. I'll get the chance to train at the dojo. Maia will collect her horses and we'll be back Sunday evening. After that I can start sifting the pictures (7,000 from Scotland, and about 3,500 from Ukraine) and post some.
The worst of the heat seems to have broken, but it's still not the weather one expects here.
A month away, in the pleasant climes of Inverness and Kiev (both of which were warm, but not sweltering, sunny, with broken clouds) meant I wasn't really expecting the weather here.
Heat, I am used to. Los Angeles gets hot, broiling hot. The past week, however, has been more mid-west hot, sticky and stultifying. The house here has no air-conditioning, and our bedroom is on the west side. A fan helps, but it was miserable when I got in.
It doesn't help that I have some GI distress. It seems some of the Kiev water got into my system, I'm guessing from the meal I had on Saturday night. Happily it's mild, and didn't afflict me until after I'd gotten back to the house.
Saturday last, the day before my return, the tempurature peaked near 110F, humidity in the upper 60s. It killed 37 mice. Worse, from the point of view of a snake keeper, this sort of heat causes the females to stop breeding, just as we have some 60 babies, recently hatched, looking for breakfast.
Weds. we sold 54 of them, which was nice. Not only was it an offest to what it costs to house and feed them (Sanichips for the snakes, and food for the mice probably totals at about $600 per year) but it's a whole lot less work. The time and effort required to feed them is gone, the cleaning of containers is gone, and the pressure to keep the femaless breeding in the heat is gone.
Unhappily, the house we were planning to move into, the sweet deal, near UCS, caretaking the house; keeping and training the dog, fell through. I shan't go into detail, but it seems (and I wasn't here for the happenings) that the expectations we had, and the expectations they had, were at variance. There was also, somehow, a mis-understanding about the snakes, which led to other divergence of desires.
So we are in Pasadena, and looking for someplace. The greatest pain is that we can't have the dogs here. We went to see them, after we sold the snakes, and they are doing well. They've got more room to ramble than they did, some grass and dirt (Oliver, in particular, is glad for the grass, as he counts it a delicacy. I also discovered, when teasing him, that he like kumquats, though oranges and lemons are a cruel joke; they aren't tennis balls, and he thinks them not tasty. Go figure), but I miss them.
We head to SLO for the weeekend, to get the last things we have there. I'll get the chance to train at the dojo. Maia will collect her horses and we'll be back Sunday evening. After that I can start sifting the pictures (7,000 from Scotland, and about 3,500 from Ukraine) and post some.
The worst of the heat seems to have broken, but it's still not the weather one expects here.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-07-29 05:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-29 06:40 am (UTC)But it's been cooler. Who thought an indicated 79F would be a reason to be thankful?
no subject
Date: 2006-07-29 08:03 am (UTC)